Collaborate Like Never Before:

3 Uses for Newforma Konekt’s 2D/3D Viewer to Save Time and Reduce Re-Work

Nikita Lambert, Product Owner

From hypermodeling to action item and issue localization, engineering teams can prevent re-work and collaborate easily with the right project information platform. 

In 1963, Ivan Sutherland developed the Sketchpad: the very first example of computer aided design (CAD). With it, he could draw irregular shapes upon a screen, and task the computer with straightening them out into parallel and perpendicular lines (among other functions). With the Sketchpad, CAD took its first steps in the broad world of civil engineering, which would eventually lead to using computers to visualize entire structures before breaking ground.

Building off the technological advances of the Sketchpad, the days when engineering teams would need to overlay dozens of sheets to make sense of a three-dimensional building–and all the confusion it created–were rapidly coming to an end. 

Today, digital platforms with integrated 2D and 3D viewers–such as Newforma Konekt–are powerful tools for structural engineers. These platforms simplify the process of understanding a plan and make it easy to see where attention needs to be paid. One of the main benefits, then, is that they allow for clarity of the project, and reduce the occurrences of re-work that so often comes when details get muddled. 

In this article, we’ll explore how digital project information platforms–like Newforma Konekt, which includes the 2D/3D Viewer feature–are essential for modern construction projects. 

1. Leverage Hyper Modeling to Save Time on Inter-team Coordination

The point of having a project information platform like Newforma Konekt is to be able to visualize your model quickly and see where work needs to be done. Depending on the kind of work you’re reviewing, you might need to look at 2D sheets or models; and sometimes you might see an issue on a sheet, and need a different perspective to understand how it ought to be resolved. 

Newforma Konekt’s 2D/3D Viewer lets you engage in hyper modeling, where you can slice a 3D model with an aligned 2D sheet, which can be done very easily by publishing from Autodesk Revit, using the Newforma Konekt plugin. 

This lets you see your project information clearly from any angle. From there you can isolate elements, add viewpoints, write comments or annotations, and make sense of any latent ambiguities in the design. 

2. Streamline Sheet and Model Reviews by Opening them all at Once

The model and sheet trees of Newforma Konekt’s 2D/3D Viewer are subsets of files that define a project. So, each time you open Newforma Konekt’s 2D/3D Viewer, you can pre-define which sheets and models belong to a particular project, then choose to activate the ones that you need for the tasks you’re accomplishing that day.

This saves your teams plenty of time because they don’t have to find the right version of the model or sheet, since these are pre-set in a list set by the project manager. Just make the selection you need for the project, and it’s saved for anyone opening the Newforma Konekt 2D/3D Viewer.

Now, what if you could review your clashes and track all issues in a centralized place, where everyone that needs to know about a particular element is instantly notified of changes? Wouldn’t that make clash reviews faster, easier, take fewer steps, and contextualize issues within your sheets or models?

3. Improve Documentation and Issue Management 

Not every project stakeholder (or manager, or owner, etc.) is going to be an architect or engineer with access to top-of-the-line hardware to review 3D models. So, when you want to share information with them about your project – especially 2D or 3D information from your model – you’ll need to do it in a roundabout way: usually by downloading reports, sending them through email, having to then follow-up with a phone call or lengthy email explaining what’s going on in the images… or worse: very, very long meetings!

But when your team is working with a project information platform like Newforma Konekt, you can create a URL about an issue, and send it to someone who then opens it directly. From the issue, any annotations or comments are immediately highlighted for your team member to look at. In this way, Newforma Konekt clarifies what’s at stake, so that you have shorter email chains and shorter meetings. 

Engineering firms equipped with Newforma Konekt have every advantage modern BIM coordination can offer for construction project delivery.

To learn more about Newforma Konekt or to schedule a demo please visit https://www.newforma.com/newforma-konekt/ 

Nikita is the Product Owner for Newforma Konekt’s 2D/3D Viewer, which is a perfect fit for him: he always makes the most out of every 3D software he comes across and loves showing others how to do the same. He is a certified Product Owner from Scrum.org, and he is the recipient of Dassault Systèmes Elite Application Engineer award. When he’s not immersed in 3D models, Nikita can be found mountain climbing in the vast wilderness in Quebec.